Poem a Day: New and classic poems provided by the Academy of American Poets
from “Crow”
Abraham Smith
in his wide wide palm the reigns loose as a foundering
pulse the sky gone
the color of the dying too
and the night kneels
on the throat of the morning
the turkey is clocking and
the night is a preservationist
the morning is a revisionist and
the child is erasing her skin
with a toe thick school eraser for
the moon is the idea of the bone in theoretical x-ray
the clenched jaws of the stars
the doctor’s hunched under
run thick cold sweat thoughts of
the metals of air war asleep
in the father of the father of boom
the crow birds sketch the sky
fumble up a funnel up the sky yes
they try and tie a first bowtie up the sky
as life this life is a soap bubble popped by a pin ha ha
the horses the noises of going ha
sound permits energy mm
of thinking sound outside
the head if
the sound of bye bye but with
then beauty and sadness
rap goat horns on a mountain
man goats boom boom
the only occasion of living finally is love
sounding motion something
other than silence takes the mind
thinking of love
writing is going
poems are bye bye
but take me with
this one composed no clapped to the tune of
wild rivers of wind fire leather coining
demitasses in zee demure aspen trees
yes the liver meat noses of those planet stars
liver lichen oh sis
the stick cage the night is
and the doctor breaking it for the people
and hitching
isis i am not to build this worn house of smoke anymore
About this poem: “This snippet is excerpted from my ‘Crow’ creation myth poem (a crow being a drunk’s left boot crammed into a country doctor’s house call satchel), forthcoming among a collection of creation myths titled ‘In the Old Days,’ which will be published by Action Books in 2015.” – Abraham Smith
About Abraham Smith: Abraham Smith is the author of “Only Jesus Could Icefish in Summer” (Action Books, 2014). He teaches at the University of Alabama and splits his time between Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Ladysmith, Wis.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2014 Abraham Smith
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
